


Chrysalis

by klutzy34



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Experiments, Mild Language, Multi, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 13:00:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12343179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klutzy34/pseuds/klutzy34
Summary: The assignment of the murder of veteran cop John McGarrett should have been one more closed case for Danny Williams. Instead, he finds himself in an alliance with McGarrett's son, Steve, and Kono Kalakaua to survive as their lives are irrevocably changed. (Triad 'verse Big Bang)





	Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to think the amazing [teaspoon82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoon82/pseuds/teaspoon82) for the wonderful job she did putting together a playlist for this fic. I gave her the vibe and she picked some great songs to go along with, so give it a listen!
> 
> 1\. My Body Is a Cage - Arcade Fire  
> 2\. Bleeding Out - Imagine Dragons  
> 3\. Head Is Not My Home - MS MS  
> 4\. Cages - Woolf and the Wondershow  
> 5\. Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums - A Perfect Circle  
> 6\. Change Is Everything - Son Lux  
> 7\. Terrified - Anna Ternheim  
> 8\. Can't Pretend - Tom Odell  
> 9\. Running Up That Hill - Placebo  
> 10\. Shattered & Hollow - First Aid Kit  
> 11\. Love Is All - The Tallest Man On Earth  
> 12\. Like Real People Do - Hozier  
> 13\. Always Take You Back - Night Terrors of 1927
> 
> **EDIT:** You can now listen to her fantastic mix by the link at the bottom of the page! Go, go listen!
> 
> Also, a huge thank you to [llmare_llse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilmare_Ilse/pseuds/Ilmare_Ilse) for betaing this fic for me last minute and offering extremely helpful and insightful critique as I tried to make sense out of a mess. (She also just finished a big bang. Go read!) 
> 
> This was my first Big Bang and unfortunately, time outside of writing and being overambitious in regards to plot left me feeling a little underwhelmed in regards to this fic. There was a lot more to tell in this story and just not enough time, so please excuse the abrupt end.

Sitting alone in the darkness with the walls closing in around him, the possibility of his life ending in the not so distant future, Danny Williams only had one regret. 

That morning, or maybe it was the day before or the day before that now, he wished he’d hugged his daughter a little longer before she ran up the stairs and into school, her new pet in the plastic carrier at his side. He wished the hug hadn’t been full of distraction, wondering if Rachel and Stan and their new wife were trying to push him out of Grace’s life again, if having a case taken away and reassigned to another wasn’t a sign of his career heading for a downward spiral. He’d been present enough to kiss the top of her head, to wish her a good day at school, to wait until she was inside the door and wave before she disappeared from sight. 

He’d been there but he hadn’t been there _enough_ , not for what might’ve been the last time he held his daughter. 

It struck him as funny that he wasn’t all that worried about the length of his lifespan or how it might possibly end. For several years now, borrowed time took up real estate in the back of his mind, the fateful day he escaped death and the reset clock ticking down until Death came to claim him once and for all. The peace that came with finally no longer guessing when it would happen entwined with the melancholy of everything he would miss, the milestones in Grace’s life. 

Not for the first time, he reached up to lightly touch his temple. The pounding had receded to a dull thud since he woke up, the wound there having stopped bleeding well before he’d woken up but the sticky blood path dribbling down the side of his face was at least dry. There was a faint scent of old iron on the air, either the dried blood or wherever it was he currently sat. At first, any attempt to move resulted in the unseen world spinning wildly around him, making his stomach lurch. Eventually, he’d been steady enough to get to his feet, using his hands to feel around.

The walls were concrete, old. He put one foot in front of the other, moving forward until he came up against an obstacle, then shuffling sideways until he found the next. Wherever they’d stuck him, it was small. If he held his arms out at his sides, the walls extended a few inches beyond his fingertips on either side. Back and forth extended a little further out, a few feet at most, with a door of normal size. A little more study revealed no doorknob or lock, which meant they were most likely on the other side of the door. With no way out that he could see, he’d settled on the floor again, legs extended in front of him, back to the wall. 

He vaguely remembered the last few moments before his bell had been rung. The McGarrett house on Piikoi, the case he’d been assigned after the captain wrestled what he insisted was a cold case out of his hands. The thing about John McGarrett was, the man had been a _haole_ like Danny, but he’d been liked by his colleagues. Danny hadn’t known him, arriving at the precinct after his retirement, but he would put good money on the fact that they never left tanning lotion on his desk, chided him on his appearance, or forgot to invite him out for beers. A case of that importance meant that Danny was only a babysitter until the captain found two of his best to put on full time. 

The house was silent when he arrived late afternoon. Silence was good, distance from the precinct was good. Hell, he’d do another walkthrough and actually work the case, maybe prove that he was damn good at what he did, as good as the paper that got him the transfer said he was. He refused to be stuck in the corner, the problem that needed distraction instead of a contributor to departmental success. 

That lasted all of an hour before a sound in the garage drew him away from the living room, gun out. 

Kono Kalakaua, cousin to a lieutenant in the department, Chin Ho Kelly, stood at McGarrett’s workbench, toolbox flipped open, her hands full of papers and photos. Danny squeezed his eyes shut, drawing his knees up to rest his forehead on, trying to remember the details as his memory grew hazier, no doubt from the knock to the head. 

She’d gotten a call from McGarrett’s kid, the SEAL. Desperate, short, he’d most likely been in trouble, but he’d managed to impress one word on her: Champ. The word belonged to a toolbox tucked back on the workbench, strangely barely used in a sea of worn toolboxes and tools. Paint dribbled down the front made sure the word stood out on the front as well as attempted to make it look like it’d been used as something other than a hiding spot. Even the tools inside were brand new and unused, not a speck of dust on them. 

It was underneath that the real purpose was revealed. A stack of old photos tightly banded together, notebooks yellowed with age and pages crinkling as he gently turned them. Someone had filled every inch of them with scientific babble and numbers. It had been years since he’d taken biology, but he recognized an experiment when he saw one. The photos themselves were horrific, mutilated human beings twisted up in agony, people in the throes of rage being held down. 

Kono was the one that declared they needed to hide the box until they could figure out what its purpose was while Danny argued that it was evidence, insisting it stayed at the crime scene. It was in the garage, after all, distant from the crime scene in the living room and something that would no doubt be ignored, to stay where it was until the house was released. They argued so passionately that neither one of them realized they were no longer alone until it was too late. 

Blue eyes, dark hair, sharp cheekbones. He could hear the sounds of Kono struggling behind him, knocking things over as she fought off her attacker, while Danny tried to stand toe to toe with his. He hit hard, blocked well, and when Danny overextended, he grabbed a handful of hair and - 

Danny cringed as a bolt of pain jabbed through his temple. Right. His attacker had bounced his head off the corner of the workbench. 

“Too bad you didn’t hit a little harder,” Danny murmured, the low pitch of his voice sounding too loud in the silence wrapped around him. He scowled at the doorway, flexing his bare toes idly. So that explained the _how_ of him getting there, but not the why. Taking a hostage required extra work, so they needed him for something. Money was definitely out, as there wasn’t much to his name, but information? That he had. What information they needed left to be seen, but it made the most sense. 

A soft shuffle outside the door interrupted Danny’s thoughts and he slowly pushed to his feet, padding over. Carefully, he leaned forward and pressed his ear against the door, listening. The shuffle became more of a scuttling, focused around the doorway. Then he heard something scrape along the surface of the door, scratching, scratching away. It almost sounded like whatever was out there, it was trying to get through to him. 

His breathing became shallow, as if he was trying to hide his presence from whatever lurked outside. The hair stood up on his arms, the back of his neck, and he started to slowly back away. The sounds from outside suddenly halted and the silence returned, until Danny swore that anyone within feet of him would most likely hear the rapidfire beat of his heart in his chest. It was the dark, it stimulated the imagination, all those bad horror movies he watched when he couldn’t sleep…

Except anything he imagined wasn’t as terrible as the shriek outside or the screech of door hinges holding as something rammed against it. Once, twice, three times. It shrieked again, unnatural and loud, then the scratching began again, only this time more furious. The sound made him think of fingernails across a chalkboard and he slapped his hands over his ears, moving back until he hit the wall again and slid down, knees tucked up close. 

“This isn’t real,” he whispered. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real…” The words became a mantra, one that he whispered over and over in the darkness while the thing outside tore at the door, defying every word out of his mouth.

\------------

He wasn’t sure how much time passed until the thing left. One moment it was creating its unholy cacophony outside the door and in the next, the silence returned, settling heavily. He thought maybe it had grown tired, given up for the moment, but as time passed, the quiet persisted. When he finally got up the nerve to crawl to the door, he couldn’t hear any movement outside. Whatever it was, it was gone.

For now. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor, resting his forehead on his arms and closing his eyes. Without the adrenaline rushing through his veins, exhaustion settled in and his eyes began to grow heavy. Sleep sounded so damn good but felt a hell of a lot like giving up. Vulnerability. It made him vulnerable to whatever came at that door next, or through it. Something with a key this time. 

But he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, his body didn’t want to respond to orders to get up and move, shake it off. 

“You have never given up this easy in your life, Williams,” he whispered. “You fought Rachel and Stan when they wanted a divorce, you fought when they wanted to move Grace to Hawaii. You lost both of those but you still fought. You don’t know the meaning of lying down and taking it.” There were a few fistfights in his teenage years that he probably should have backed down from, but he hadn’t been able to with those either. Maybe he wasn’t getting out of the situation alive, but it didn’t mean he would make it easy for th-

The door screeched open, metal dragging against metal, and bright light filled the small room. Danny hissed and buried his face in his arms, the sudden brightness sending another jagged bolt of pain through his head. Hands grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet, barely giving him time to get his balance before he was forced ahead out into the hall. 

Neither man was the one from the garage and neither one had distinctive enough features to stand out in a crowd, muscleheads with close-cropped hair and expressionless faces. As he started to sag between them, the one on his right hauled him up roughly. “Watch your hands or I’ll shove them up your ass,” Danny snarled at him, an empty threat at best when the musclehead’s bicep was as big as his head. The man stared back at him blankly, didn’t loosen his grasp, but the two stopped long enough to give him time to steady himself.

The corridor was full of identical doorways, all closed up tightly. Industrial lights illuminated every inch of the hallway. Once they moved through the door at the end, however, everything grew dimmer. It was obvious the building had fallen into disuse at some point, wallpaper peeling away at points, debris in corners, cobwebs up above. “I’ve seen this movie,” Danny murmured, not sure if he was talking to himself or stupidly trying to engage the men in conversation. “This is where the tortured spirit pops out of the wall and kills you both because she decided she likes me and wants me to live.” 

Never, in his entire life, had he ever been that lucky.

Once more back into the brightness. Danny had to blink furiously to allow his eyes to readjust, the modern setup just as jarring as the light. Three gurneys were separated by sheets of thick plastic, creating three-walled rooms around each one. Each ‘room’ had its own set of medical equipment, vital monitors, IV poles. The gurneys bore heavy straps and two were occupied.

Danny pulled up short as he recognized the lithe brunette in the middle, resisting the tug from his escorts to keep moving by digging his heels in. Unfortunately, he had no traction in bare feet and he was shoved forward, staggering towards the empty gurney. 

“Kono! Hey, _Kono!_ ” he bellowed, breathing a momentary sigh of relief when her head shot up, eyes growing wide as she spotted him. “Kono, you - get your hands off me, you - “ It didn’t take much for them to grab him by the arms again, slamming him down against the gurney so hard that it was a shock for the legs not to collapse. One meaty palm rest in the middle of his chest while three hands worked at the straps. Chest, midsection, wrists buckled to the midsection strap, ankles. 

He pushed against the straps, but they were too tight to give him any movement. “Danny, are you all right?” He turned his head just enough to see her shadow against the thick plastic wall, raising her head up off her own gurney. 

“I’m a little disappointed, honestly. When I signed up for the spa package, I know I didn’t check the box for rough love. I think I’m going to demand a refund,” he replied dryly, letting his head hit the gurney again. “You?” 

Kono’s laugh was void of any humor. “I think I’ve been better but I’ll let you know once we get an idea of how deep the shit is that we’re in.” Despite the situation, Danny found himself chuckling as well. It was better to laugh than cry, right?

“I’m fine too.” A masculine voice, the third person on a gurney, the one on Kono’s other side. 

“Danny, Steve McGarrett. Steve, Danny Williams.” It felt extremely odd to be making such polite introductions while in dire straits. 

“McGarrett? John’s kid?” 

“The one. You’re the detective on my dad’s case. Kono filled me in while we were just hanging out.” At least they had that one thing going for all three of them, the ability to embrace dark humor. 

“I was. Chances are they’ve discovered I’m missing, thrown a party, and reassigned the case.” 

“Maybe if you didn’t insist on wearing a tie in Hawaii…”

“It’s called professional attire! I’ve solved a lot of cases wearing professional attire! Just because the island thinks everyone should wear Aloha shirts and board shorts to work…”

“No one wears a tie in Hawaii, Williams. No one.”

“And no one asked the guy who crawls around in the dirt as a career for his fashion advice either.” 

“Seriously? Crawls around in the dirt? I think you have me mixed up with a Ranger - “ 

“I’m pretty certain I know who I’m talking about - “

They missed the clearing of the throat the first time, then the second, but the loud ‘excuse me!’ shut the conversation down quickly. The man stood back far enough that all three of them could see him, hands resting on his hips. Tall, hair graying at the temples, his good looks had a rough edge, crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. The stethoscope slung around his neck was the only giveaway to his role. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt,” he said, raising his hands. His voice was deep but lacked a placeable accent. What bothered Danny the most was the way he spoke to them, pleasantly, as if they were voluntarily there to participate. “Well, I did, but I promise you, it’s just my excitement getting the better of me. Now, let me see if I got this.” He pointed to each one in turn. “Daniel, Kono, Steven. I like to know who my participants are.”

Danny lifted his head to glare at him. “You know how you find out who your participants are? You put out an ad and let people respond, then interview them to decide if they fit.” Every word out of his mouth dripped with sarcasm. “You also offer to pay them.” 

The man rolled his eyes upwards as if considering, lips pressed together, then shook his head. “Well, maybe for some. This requires some creative handling as a few of the possible outcomes, we’ve found, are a little...offputting.” He clapped his hands together. “However, thanks to some new information, I have high hopes for this round of testing, as should you all.” 

From his far left, Danny heard an almost animalistic growl. Steve, it would seem, had a few issues with verbalizing his annoyance. 

“Testing what?” Kono asked. “Do we even get to know what you’re doing to us?” 

“The guy isn’t even telling us his name.” 

Danny’s statement earned a snap of the fingers from the doctor, followed by the shake of a finger. “You’re right. You are absolutely right, that was incredibly rude of me. My name is Doctor Samuel Robbins. I’m an independent contractor working on a project to enhance human physicality.” 

Not a one of them seemed to be able to come up with anything helpful if the silence was anything to go by. He couldn’t see them, but he could imagine Kono’s perplexed expression, Steve’s stoic one. His own mouth hanging open and snapping shut like a fish on dry land. _Enhance human physicality?_ “I don’t -” Danny started, trying to break both the silence, suddenly stifling, and nudge his own brain into motion. “I don’t know what my ex-wife told you but aside from a few missing inches, I don’t really need any human enhancement.” Despite trying to approach the situation with sarcasm, the last two words felt wrong on his tongue. 

“That’s barely an explanation,” Steve interjected, his voice low, dangerous. The tone was as such that Danny felt a little uncomfortable and he wasn’t the target. “What about it? Why?” 

“You’ve started delivering your bad guy soliloquy, you might as well continue.” The more he got to know these two, the more he liked them. Or would have liked them, if he wasn’t focused on the panic pushing him towards his first ever heart attack - and possible last if he didn’t survive this moment.

Robbins seemed to regard them with an easy amusement that Danny wanted to slap off his face, children who didn’t understand but were amusing nonetheless. “I think you’ll find it’s not hard to figure out. A faster, stronger human being, with senses heightened and better endurance, they would quickly move to the forefront of weapons technology. No one would look for them to be a threat.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “The advances we could make, the wars we could win.” 

That sent a chill down Danny’s spine. The more terrorism attacks that would occur, more innocents killed. If there were truly good intentions to this project, which he doubted entirely, that would be one thing. Kidnapped, tucked away, less than respectable circumstances. That science would not be going into the right hands. 

Robbins continued, steepling his hands before him. “It works on a genetic level, digging in deeply and changing a body from the inside out. Reinforcement, enhancement. Unstoppable.” The look on his face made Danny wonder if those desired results had kept him warm on many a cold night and then promptly mentally slapped himself. That was not an image he needed in his head when he died. 

“You’re trying to play god. I don’t know if you’ve seen a movie in the last ten years, but any of them on the subject says that generally doesn’t turn out well.” Danny snapped back. Changing a human being at that level? No. Absolutely not. It wasn’t a prosthetic or a transplant, something that became part of the human body. It was changing it entirely to suit a purpose, a very deadly and chilling purpose.

“Not playing god.” Another voice interjected and suddenly, the room was beginning to feel a little too full. The owner of the voice strolled through the doorway and Danny felt a surge of anger at the familiar face previously seen in hazy memories. Unlike the doctor, the newcomer looked less than enthused as he walked over, jabbing a finger at the doctor’s chest.

“You are wasting time. Now that we retrieved that information, he’s expecting results. Don’t fraternize with the mice.” The longer he spoke, the more apparent the Irish-accent became. “Get it done.” 

Robbins held up his hand, gently laying it on the other man’s hand. “I promise you, we’re getting close. It doesn’t hurt to try and put the subjects a little at ease,” he added gently. “Bedside manner.” 

The other man glared back at him. “They either die, they survive and it fails, or they survive and we have a marketable product. Get to work.” He pushed past Robbins. “Your bloody father talked less than you did. If I was the kind to miss people, I might miss him.” He disappeared from Danny’s sight. “Commander McGarrett, can I get you anything? A drink? A bullet perhaps?”

“Go fuck yourself, Hesse.” 

“I have some who prefer to do so for me. I hope the next time I see you, you’re the twisted wreck of a human being.” Hesse strolled back into sight, stopping only to give Robbins another look. “Get it done.” Neither Danny nor Kono merited a look as the man left the room again, leaving Robbins to roll his eyes and hold up his hands. 

“Look, I am entirely invested in your wellbeing. No matter what happens, I am here for you.” There was something wrong with the man, Danny decided. Not just because he was here, forcing human beings to be his test subjects, but because he seemed to want them to put their trust in him, or worse, like him. Robbins tried to be their friend, coming off like the host of a children’s show. It was unnerving him. “I’d say you could ask my last test group but they, uh, lack the vocal chords to express the sentiment.” He flicked his fingers at his throat and made a face, a clear ‘oops’. 

Danny felt a chill race down his spine as he remembered hours earlier, the screeching at his door, something sharp scraping against the other side. Then his mind raced farther back to the pictures in the toolbox, the twisted human bodies in black and white. Enhanced human physicality, retrieved information. He felt the nausea return and this time, it had nothing to do with the head injury and everything to do with his suspicions. 

“What did you do to them?” The words slipped out before he could stop them, his voice strained as he started to develop mental images, horrific creatures lurking in the shadows, former humans twisted and mutilated. Suddenly the faces on the creatures started to morph into his own. 

“It was not my intent, which is why I still care for them,” Robbins replied defensively as he picked up an IV bag from the tray at his side and slowly approached Danny. “Unlike my father, who believed their purpose ended when the trial was deemed a failure. I call them Rejects, with utmost affection. They gave their lives to a higher purpose and it wasn’t their fault I failed.”

No, forget unnerved. Underneath the optimistic veneer was a complete psycho who didn’t understand the difference between volunteering and forcing against one’s will. Danny started to struggle again, throwing his body from side to side, but the gurney didn’t even rock. Somehow they’d anchored it, cutting off another avenue of excuse. “It wasn’t their fault that they were your victims,” he snapped angrily, “and I swear that when I get out of this, I’m going to - _fuck!_ ” The threat ended abruptly as the IV needle slipped into his arm, Robbins’ bedside manner attitude apparently not extending to his touch. 

“They are part of a long line of men and women who have given up their bodies in the pursuit of bettering mankind. They are not victims, they are revered.” Closer now, Danny could see the madness glittering in the man’s eyes as he hooked the IV bag on the stand. The horror movie feel of the situation became stronger with the introduction of the mad scientist. “Don’t worry. You’ll join them soon enough, Daniel.”

“ _Don’t call me that._ ” Robbins ignored him, pullinging a syringe from the pocket of his pants and slipping the cap off. He held it up to the light, inspecting it for air bubbles, then picked up the line. Time seemed to slow as he slipped it into the port and pressed the plunger, emptying the clear liquid into the line. The moment the plunger stopped, Danny felt an ache deep in his heart, the feeling of defeat, no going back. 

“Now, just lay back. This might be a little stressful on you, but we’ll try and make it as comfortable as possible.” Robbins picked up Danny’s hand, slipping the heart monitor onto his finger and taping it. “Just give Marcus or Joe a shout, all right?” He moved just enough to motion to the meatheads that dragged Danny into the room, both standing near the door and looking bored out of their skulls. What kind of human beings were they to see the horrors that took place in the room and not give a damn?

Danny’s head thumped back down on the gurney as he stared up at the ceiling. His thoughts left the room, the building, flying away, far away from wherever they were, to where Grace sat on her bedroom floor, playing with her dolls. He could see her so clearly, her dark brown hair and eyes, the sitting image of her mother, but with her father’s attitude. So sweet and smart, going to go so far in the world. 

He was vaguely aware of Kono to his side, telling Robbins where he could put his experiment in graphic detail. Danny wondered how many people begged for their lives, who those people were, where they came from. Who missed them, or if they were missed at all. 

His body started to feel warm, heat racing through his veins like fire along a trail of gasoline. He started to shift on the gurney as much as his restraints would allow, but it did nothing to ease his growing discomfort. The injury at his temple started to throb more noticeably and he closed his eyes. He pictured Grace again, this time kneeling on the beach, working wet sand into a castle. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth. Then utter joy broke into her expression and her head shot up, hands motioning for her him to come to her. 

“ _Look what I did, Danno!_ ” 

The warmth in his body continued to grow until discomfort started to become pain. He tried to draw in a deep breath but his lungs wouldn’t seem to work and his back arched off the gurney as far as the restraints would allow, trying to make it stop. Any position that would work, he tried to get to, but it only left him squirming, drawing in ragged breaths, fingers curling into fists. 

It burned. It _fucking burned_ and he couldn’t make it stop. He felt like he would burn up from the inside out, turning to ash and leaving no trace behind. Someone was screaming in pain nearby and he belatedly realized that it was him. Like film caught in a projector, the images of Grace started to tear apart and melt, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto them. The bright lights of the room began to dim around him, his vision blurring around the edges and growing darker.

Then it just

stopped.

\--------------------

Sunlight filtered through the curtains, warming his body wherever it touched. Danny stretched lazily and hummed softly, enjoying the feel of his muscles moving after so long inactive. Rachel groaned and burrowed against him further, burying her head against his chest. He chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head, then reached down to slip his fingers between those on the hand resting against his hip. He pulled Stan’s hand to his lips, brushing them against his knuckles lightly.

“It’s too early to start something,” Stan murmured from where he lay half-sprawled over Rachel. Their night had been an active one, the three of them making another attempt at starting that family they so badly wanted. He couldn’t remember when they’d finally been too worn out to try again, falling asleep in a tangle of legs and sheets. 

“You know that you don’t start something on a weekend before pancakes, Stanley,” Danny chided before he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. Locating a pair of boxers, he slipped them on with a little hop dance and padded to the door. “After what we did last night, I think that calls for chocolate chip.” 

Stepping out the door, he closed it behind him and turned to head down the hallway - only to find that it no longer existed. Instead, he faced a long hallway, doors lining the sides as far as he could see. “Huh. I must have lost the kitchen again,” he murmured idly, reaching for the doorknob on the first door and stepping inside.

“This isn’t working, Danny. The three of us, it’s not working.” 

“No, no, it will. I just have to increase the size of the batter batch. I can make it work.” Even as he said it, he realized they were having two different conversations. Rachel and Stan sat close to each other, knees touching, hands clasped. The coffee table in front of Rachel was littered with used tissues and she looked up at him with red eyes. 

“It’s not the size of the batch, Danny. It’s the ingredients. They don’t work,” she said softly, turning her face away from them. “One of them is wrong.” 

He stared at her, slowly comprehending. “I’m the wrong ingredient. I keep you two from being a pancake,” he said slowly, then shook his head. “Why am I the wrong ingredient? How do you know?” 

“You’re the only one that doesn’t make sense, Danny. I’m sorry.” He felt the rage simmering in his chest then, anger at the two people sitting in front of him. He’d worked so hard to make them the perfect breakfast and there they sat, telling him that it wasn’t good enough. They’d decided it without him. 

Rachel started to cry harder then and Stan looked pained, gripping her arm. “Why did you have to do that to yourself, Danny?” he whispered and Danny looked down, at the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had once been. 

“You made me do it, Stan, Rachel. You made me do it. I had no choice.” He ran his fingers over the edges, slick with blood and sweat. “It wouldn’t work anymore and I had to get rid of it, just like you got rid of me.” Pain shot through his chest then and he doubled over, the breath leaving his lungs in a rush. He fell to his knees and they watched him passively, Rachel’s soft cries fading to silence. 

Jesus, everything _hurt_. Danny tried to force his eyes open again, but they were so heavy. Every muscle in his body ached and he felt like they were trying to force him into a twisted piece of human wreckage. Sweat soaked through his clothing and his fingernails dug into his palms, drawing blood. 

“Kill me.” The words slipped from his lips onto deaf ears, no one coming to his aid. He struggled to stay conscious but it didn’t take long for him to tire, and he slipped back into the darkness.

\----------------------

Bodies littered the floor around him, blood spattered his chinos, his shirt. His hands dripped thickly with it. He stared at them before slowly lowering them to his sides, gazing at the destruction around him. He should have felt something, guilt, horror, disgust, but instead he felt nothing, a void where his heart should have been, weighing his morals against his actions. 

_Or relief._ Cold fingers brushed against the back of his neck, down his spine, but he didn’t shiver, didn’t shudder. Instead, he stood still, closing his eyes. The cool felt heavenly against the raging fever. _Look closer._

He slowly crouched down, looking closer as the voice ordered. Familiar faces looked back at him, dead, familiar faces. Eyes staring blankly ahead. Each one of them someone who hurt him in the past, hurt him so badly that he was tempted to lash out, maybe had, but never enough to hurt them the same way they hurt him. All of them represented the pain he swallowed down and accepted as part and parcel of living life. 

Each one of them had a gaping wound on their chest. Empty gaping wounds. 

Danny shot to his feet and stumbled back, trying to escape their accusing, dead eyes. “I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this,” he protested, whirling around to find the source of the voice. 

_You did do this. This is what happens when you fully embrace who you are._

He dug his fingers into his hair, trying to drown the voice out. “No. Nein, nada, niet. I have anger issues but I’m working on it. I have never hit someone who didn’t deserve it and that is the extent of it. I would not - I would not murder an innocent person, no matter how much they angered me,” he snapped angrily, flinging his arms out and turning. 

_Embrace your violence. Look down._

Cupped in his hands was a human heart, still beating. Danny swallowed hard and tried to drop it, but his hands wouldn’t respond to the commands his brain sent. Instead, he could only watch in equal parts revulsion and fascination as it continued to beat, independent of a body. The closer he looked, the more he saw the bruises littering the surface of the heart. 

_Crush it. Leave it all behind you._

“That doesn’t seem right,” Danny replied, his brow furrowing. The heart seemed almost sad as it beat listlessly in his hands. 

_It is right._

“No,” he replied more forcefully, shaking his head hard. “No, it’s hurt. It can get better. You don’t just - you don’t just destroy something because it’s broken, you fix it.” The voice hissed, a chilly breeze past his ear. It was angry with his answer, with his stubbornness. He cupped his hands closer around the heart, holding it to his chest. 

The warmth that bloomed out from his chest felt different from the raging fever, it felt comforting. It also hurt like hell, like it was shattering to pieces like a mirror smashed with a hammer. He fell to his knees, clutching at his chest, gasping for breath. The fever returned and he felt like he was kneeling in fire, burning alive. 

A shadow fell over him and he looked upward, eyes growing wider as he saw the mirror image of himself. It crouched down, glaring at him balefully. “I’m not going away, babe,” it told him, baring its teeth as it spoke, eyes blazing red, “but I’m willing to be patient. You can have this round.” Suddenly it lashed out, pushing him backwards. Danny fell, throwing his arms out, reaching for something to grab onto as the world around him went dark once more. 

\--------------

He woke up on the cold concrete floor. 

Every movement hurt, his muscles aching as if he’d run a marathon without properly stretching, his stomach twisting up. Slowly, he got onto his knees and undid the buttons on his shirt with shaking fingers, running them over his chest. Aside from the abundance of hair, it remained as intact as it ever did, his heartbeat fluttering under his fingertips. 

He heaved out a sigh of relief and sat back heavily against the wall, tilting his head back. For a moment, he could convince himself it was all a nightmare. The dreams were obvious and the lab, that was a product of too many late night movies. He’d simply fallen asleep, waiting for his fate to be decided.

Which was when he realized that, for as dark as the small room was, he could suddenly see much more than he had before. The walls were smooth as he’d felt before, but now he could see the writing on the wall, old graffiti tags of artists passing through. He rose to his feet, hand reaching out to trace the letters of one of the tags, the swoops of the cursive. All five fingers splayed out against the wall.

_Hit it._

His lips curved into a grim smile and he pulled his arm back, curling his fingers into a fist before he slammed it into the wall. Concrete flakes exploded as cracks ran out from the point of impact. His knuckles hurt and he pulled back his hand, idly staring at the dark splotches on his knuckles. Blood. Torn skin. 

He hit the wall again.

The destruction satisfied some need deep within and he drew his hand back again. Two more strikes against the wall and his knuckles and fingers really hurt now. Stepping back, he flexed his fingers and ran the thumb of his opposite hand over the knuckles, brushing away the blood. Despite it all, he wanted to do it again and again, craving that satisfaction. 

“Danny. Is that you?” 

The voice startled him, slightly muffled and entirely impossible. “McGarrett?” He spun around, eyeing the corners of the room and finding no one. 

“You can hear me?” Steve sounded startled. “You shouldn’t be able to hear me. Not through these walls.”

“Then why did you bother to ask if it was me?” Danny demanded loudly, tilting his head up to scan the ceiling. No vents. Oxygen had to be getting in and out of the room somehow. 

“I hear something breaking and figured that it was - nevermind. That’s not the important question right now.” 

“Right. The important question is where is that rat.” Danny stared blankly at the wall, lips forming a small ‘o’ before he sharply shook his head. 

“Not what I was going for.” 

“It’s in my cell,” Kono interjected sleepily. “I think it just tried to make a nest in my hair.” 

“Wonderful. So we can all hear each other now through walls that should make it impossible to communicate with their thickness. This is new and potentially terrifying.” Danny lightly smacked the wall again and turned his back to it, pacing the room again. 

“We didn’t communicate before. You don’t know that.” 

“It’s concrete. Deep concrete.” Danny stuck his finger into the hole his fist had been making. “So I’m going to make an educated guess here and say no, this isn’t natural.” 

“Neither is being able to see this well. This is night vision,” Steve interjected with cool, detached analysis. “If we’re seeing this well upon waking up in the darkness, then light might not be our friend right now.” 

Idly, Danny rubbed at his injured knuckles again, only to pause when his thumbpad ran over smooth skin. He held his hand closer to his face, his heart kicking up in speed when he realized the skin was unblemished. Just to make sure, he checked the knuckles of his other hand and found the same. “No.” 

The panic started to settle in then and he turned, gazing around the room again, looking for something he may have missed before. “I have to get out of here.” 

“We all have to get out of here, Danny. We also need to figure out what’s going on so that we don’t…” Steve trailed off.

“We don’t want? Burn our eyes out, shatter our ear drums? See and hear things we shouldn’t be able to? I don’t know about the two of you, but I have pinched myself several times and I think I just heard Kono’s hair rat take a piss in her cell.” 

“That is not inaccurate,” Kono added dryly.

“You’re taking this too calmly. Why aren’t you panicking? This isn’t normal!” Danny bellowed at the wall, followed by two shouts for him to keep it down and leaving his own ears ringing. “What did they do to us?” There was that anger again, rising steadily from within. He felt it take over, smoothly guiding his movements, his arm seeming to lash out slowly, his fist crashing into the door. 

It gave around his fist like it was made in tin, caving in. The rage didn’t stop there, Danny planting his left foot and kicking out with his right, sending the door crashing out into the hallway. The pain slammed through his foot at the same time he spun away, throwing an arm over his eyes as the light hit him with the same force as looking directly into the sun. 

“What the hell was that?” Steve demanded.

“The door,” Danny croaked. “I destroyed the door.” 

“You destroyed the d - “ He heard the sound of metal crunching down the hallway. Once, twice, then a shriek and a clatter as it toppled onto the floor. “Shit.” Danny was struck with the image of the Navy SEAL a few doors down, staring at his hands in surprise, and he giggled. 

“Watch out for the light,” he called, just as he heard another thump of body against metal. The second thump brought a squeal of metal grinding against metal, followed by a surprised ‘cool’ from Kono. 

“Just to point this out, I got myself free without destroying everything in sight.” 

Danny finally tried to look towards the light again, eyes squinting against the brightness. Kono stood in the doorway with her hand shielding her eyes, peering at him. “You look like Nosferatu over there, hunched away from the light.” 

Steve appeared next to her, rubbing at his eyes. “While it’s true, can we put off the classic Hollywood comparisons until later, after we escape from this place?” He dropped his hands to briefly motion towards the door at the end of the hallway, then covered his eyes again. “Let’s move out.” 

“Aye aye, captain.” 

“It’s Commander.”

“I know it’s Commander, I’m not...nevermind.” Shielding his eyes, Danny scooted past them, staring down at the floor as they hustled down the hall. “What the hell did they steal my shoes for?” Shoes, socks, tie. Anything and everything that wasn’t his pants, his boxers, or his shirt. 

“To prevent us from weaponizing them. After I almost killed Anton with my boot, they decided to relinquish us of as many personal belongings as possible.”

“Right. SEAL. You could probably kill them with your pinkie toe.”

“That’s classified.” Kono reached the door first, pushing it open to step into the dimmer hall. She breathed a sigh of relief and dropped her hand. 

“Big empty hallway? No one around with massive guns to make sure we don’t hit the road? I don’t like it,” Danny stated quietly. “There’s the lab but I don’t think anyone wants to make a return trip there.” At the moment, he barely remembered more than a few minutes there, but he didn’t want to remember the rest either. 

“Don’t want to, but should. It’s our best chance at finding out what happened to us.” Steve pushed past him and Kono followed after, leaving Danny to catch up. 

“So everyone realizes that in these kinds of movies, it doesn’t turn out well for the people who go back, right? Most of them die?” Steve shot him an irritable look before he pushed the door open to the lab and stepped inside, shielding his eyes from the light. 

The gurneys were gone, no doubt used to take them back to dump them in their cells and then taken away. The machines sat silent against the wall, their purpose fulfilled for now. Kono drifted over to where she’d been restrained, lightly pushing at the heavy plastic walls, gazing at the floor as if it might offer answers. Danny watched the way she moved, careful, examining everything, dismissing nothing without thorough investigation. Cop ran in the family. 

He turned away to investigate his own ‘room’, kicking aside trash idly before he crouched down to pick up the IV needle. 

_-after the final spasm of his muscles, Danny sunk to the gurney, desperately trying to draw in a deep breath of air while his heart triplehammered in his chest and the fever continued to rage through his body._

_Someone grabbed his leg and pulled it straight. Robbins, the psychotic jackass. His hands ran up and down his leg, feeling his calf, his thigh. If he hadn’t been so exhausted just then, Danny might’ve kicked him in the face._

_“...that was what we needed. Dad’s notes didn’t work without the notes the CIA took from him. He was so close but he just couldn’t get that one thing right. I did. Look at this. No twisting of the muscles, no malformation of the bones, the joints. No irregular growth. This is it!”_

_He deserved more than a kick to the face._

_“They’ll need continued monitoring, of course. Testing is not without side effects,” Robbins continued. Danny felt the tug of sleep trying to lull him back to an unconscious state, but he wanted to hear what else the mad scientist had to say for himself. Just what he’d done to them. “With the next round, we can fine tune the program.”_

Danny shifted uncomfortably, reaching down to rub at his leg. “Does anyone else remember Robbins getting a little handsy with them?” he asked. 

“Vaguely,” Steve replied. “I don’t remember much between whatever went into the IV bag and waking up back in the cell. We could have been down hours, days.” 

Kono’s nose wrinkled up. “I do remember being called ‘gorgeous perfection’. I’d hoped that was a nightmare.” 

Steve whirled a finger in the air before stepping back towards the door. “There’s nothing in here that we can use. We keep moving.” He spun around and kept moving, leaving Danny to lift his arms to his sides. 

“Who left you in charge?”

\----------------

They weren’t in Hawaii anymore, at least not the one Danny knew. Granted, he’d only been there for six months, but he was fairly certain that it didn’t have the ruins of an abandoned hospital. Once they pushed past the holding rooms, the hallway leading to the lab, and the lab itself, the ruin became more apparent. Trash littered around, the walls slowly falling down, broken furniture. An illegal project hidden in the middle of abandonment. If he didn’t loathe these people so much, he might’ve applauded the creativity. 

Steve slunk close to the walls, weaving in and out of shadows, what little shadow there was anymore. Danny tried too hard not to think on what that increased vision meant, what else could accompany it. Everything around him seemed to be sharper, as if he’d switched to high definition TV. He’d read an old poster about STDs from down the hall, the only hitches coming from the dust and mildew. He could hear the scuttling of four footed creatures around them, trying to get away from the much bigger humans as quickly as possible. There were creaks and groans of the old building settling around them, the wind pushing in through broken windows. 

Their fearless leader suddenly stopped ahead, sinking down to a crouch and motioning for Kono and Danny to get along the wall and do the same. “What’s going on?” Kono whispered. “I only hear - “ She yelped when Steve lunged forward, tall body extending fully to grab something creeping near what had once been a dresser, oddly misplaced in a spacious waiting room. The rat in his grasp squealed and wiggled, trying to get loose in vain. With an odd, focused look in his eyes, Steve lifted it by the tail. 

“Steve.” Danny exchanged a look with Kono before he glanced back to Steve. “ _Steven!_ ” He stayed soft out of fear of attracting attention, but his voice went sharp. Steve blinked a few times as if snapping out of a dream, then glanced at Danny.

“What?”

“Rat. Why did you just go rat hunting? How does that help us right now?” Steve stared at the rat, eyes widening in surprise before he dropped it on the ground. It skittered off through the debris while he wiped his hands on his cargos. 

“I, uh, I don’t know. Let’s keep moving. We have to be close to a doorway out of here.” 

Before he could start moving again, Danny reached out to grab Steve’s arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Steve gently pulled his arm away from Danny. “Are any of us right now? The only thing we can do right now is move. So let’s move.” Figured. Tough guy Navy SEAL would probably rather undergo torture than admit to a moment of vulnerability or weakness. He fell into step after Steve, arms crossed tightly over his chest. 

The footsteps came first, several sets of them. Kono and Steve had enough time to get out of the open space before eight men burst into the atrium, all heavily armed. And there Danny stood like a complete putz, unarmed and exposed. 

As if their situation wasn’t complicated enough, the next few minutes made it even moreso. 

Steve emerged from the shadows behind, landing lightly on his feet from who knew where. Danny stayed where he was, arms over his head, still as a statue while the man approached, gun raised up. Then he was down, taken down by Steve from behind with a grace that made Danny feel uneasy. It reminded him of the cat his sister once had, right before it launched an attack on his poor dog. 

Kono moved next, catching the gunman closest to her. A quick kick at his hands removed the gun from them and she dove to catch it. She spun out of reach just as quickly, bringing the assault weapon up as if was all part of a deadly ballet. Point, shoot, man down.

Distracted by his two allies, Danny felt the bullet tear into his shoulder and send him crashing to the ground. The pain was very much present, although what they had endured earlier had taken some of the punch out of it from what he remembered. He held his shoulder, rolling onto his side.

That feeling of rage, the one that didn’t feel quite right but seemed to be ever present since he’d woken up, began to push upwards again. This time, he let it free as he heard the crunch of debris under boots getting closer, his shooter coming to finish him off. The rage felt soothing, comforting, bathing the world in a red tint.

He pushed to his feet, the pain already beginning to fade from his shoulder. As he turned to face the musclehead that shoved him along, every one of the man’s reactions became slow. The way he brought his gun up, the way his eyes widened, he took a breath. It was all too easy to knock the gun out of his hand and grab him by the throat, fingers tightening. His face grew red and he beat desperately at Danny’s hand but he still fell to his knees with a little guidance. 

A quick movement of his hand and musclehead’s neck snapped as easy as uncooked pasta. 

Something dark coiled up within Danny, demanding more. It fed on the violence he created, the bloodshed he caused. The chaos. He was drunk on the chaos he created and he wanted more. A second man was approaching him and Danny reached for his wrist. Bone cracked and the scream echoed through the rundown atrium, delighting the darkness within. Another solid hit, another loud crunch, and the man dropped to the ground, unmoving. 

He felt the presence of another behind him, almost hyperaware of his surroundings. Danny spun to face it, foot sweeping out. They fell and he lunged on top of them, hands sliding easily around their neck. His thumbs pressed in, cutting off the air, the red haze in his vision obscuring all identifying characteristics of the man beneath him. Hands rest on his shoulders and he bat one away, intent on finishing what he started. They could wait to be next. 

Then Kono was behind him, pulling him back. Her arms wrapped around him, her lips near his ear. “Danny, _stop_ ,” she pleaded softly. “Stop.”

The darkness had a strong hold on him, not wanting to give up the foothold, but Kono’s grip on him, her familiar voice, gave him an anchor. Danny blinked rapidly, focusing on his breaths. _One in, one out, one in, one out…_ Slowly, the world started to return to color muted by shadow and darkness, the red fading away. 

In front of him, Steve lay on the ground, rubbing at his neck and coughing. “Sorry.” The word tumbled out, panicked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - I don’t know what happened, I’m sorry. They just shot me and…” To prove he was telling the truth, he pushed aside the tears in his shirt to show them he’d been hit.

The tear in the fabric remained, as did the blood that stained it and stayed on his skin. The deep furrow, however, looked raw and red, but considerably healed. Danny’s breath hitched in his throat and he shook his head. “No, this is not right. It’s not right at all, something is wrong with us.” 

Kono still held onto him, stroking his back. “Something’s wrong with all of us, Danny, but so far, we haven’t done anything we’ll regret and we’re figuring it out, all right?” 

“I tried to kill Steve.”

Still lying on the ground, Steve waved off the comment before coughing again. “You wouldn’t be the first.” He slowly sat up, running his fingers through his hair to shake loose the dust and grit. 

Danny laughed nervously, resting a hand on Kono’s arm. “You’ve just got that kind of face.” Steve arched an eyebrow at the comment, but the smirk on his lips resembled amusement, so Danny counted it as a win - or at least a sign the commander didn’t have a stick up his ass. 

“Kono is right though. We need to get out of here, figure out what’s going on, and then we need to stop it from happening to anyone else.” Steve lurched to his feet, holding out his hands to help Kono and Danny up. “I’m entirely certain no one is supposed to have bone-like sharp nails under their fingernails.” 

Kono grabbed his arm, peering at his fingers intently. “But not unhandy,” she added, poking at each finger. “Is there a way to trigger it or…?” 

“Why don’t we save that for a later time.” Steve tugged his arm from her grasp, tucking it behind his back. 

“You mean another time when two ants having sex a mile away isn’t threatening to give me a migraine and industrial lights are the approximate of staring directly at the sun? Another time when I’m not suddenly a slave to my rage? Someone else just tell me they are as worried about all this as I am.” Danny spun around to face the two of them. “I’m trying to do the whole ‘calm and collected’ thing in the face of danger, remember that I’m an officer of the law who performs well under stress. However, I am not trained for this situation! None of this is natural and I can’t remember anything except a few nightmares. Am I danger to everyone else around me? What the _fuck_ do we do now? Someone, please, please, please, just tell me they’re quietly freaking about it as much as I am.” 

They stood quietly, facing each other, until Kono raised her hand. “I’m trying not to think about it, I’m really not. When I do, I consider it a superpower, like Wonder Woman.” She gave them a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m just trying to get out of here before I fall apart and wonder what’s going to happen next, what I’m going to do.” 

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “The Navy already trained me to be a weapon. So far, it’s been unexpected, but not unfamiliar. You learn the new way your body moves and you move on.” 

Of course. Of course Steve wouldn’t be bothered by it. He barely knew the man and yet Danny felt faintly annoyed that he didn’t seem as flappable as him and Kono. Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginning of a headache that had nothing to do with the light or the sounds. “And that is how these criminals will develop an edge over every form of law enforcement out there trying to stop them.” 

“The world goes to hell, more than it already has,” Kono added quietly, then closed her eyes. “We can’t let that happen.” 

Steve shook his head. “We’re not going to. We continue to search this place, looking for the Hesses or Robbins or anyone in league with them that has access to that research. We find it, we destroy it. Who’s in?” He held out his hand. 

Danny and Kono knocked fingers when they reached out at the same time. “What kind of a cop would I be if I let my own transformation get in the way, huh? Maybe I can work some of that rage out of my system for good, huh?” His laugh lacked humor and instead sounded strained, on the verge of falling apart. In short, it sounded like he felt. If he kept it together long enough to get to safety, it would be a small miracle.

Steve shook his head slowly. _Too soon._

Kono snorted. “I’m not a cop yet, but I do believe in hitting the bad guys where it hurts. Let’s kick a little ass.”

“Let’s kick a little ass and then go get drunk so it’s acceptable to cry.”

“ _Danny._ ”

\---------------------

_Three Years Later_

Danny leaned towards the small window, gazing out into the night at the lights of the city far below them. Not too long ago, the pilot announced their descent into Honolulu. He idly spun the black wedding band around his finger, a subtle outlet for the nerves he felt. 

It was a homecoming and yet it wasn’t. O’ahu never felt like home in the six months before he’d been forcibly removed from it, but it was where his daughter called home. His beautiful, smart Grace, quickly outgrowing her days of being a child and heading full tilt towards being a teenager. He’d barely seen in her three years and always from a distance, unable to be in her life, not yet. For all that he’d endured in life, there was no hell that came close. 

Kono slipped her fingers between his and squeezed, resting her head on his shoulder. “This is it, Danny,” she murmured, almost as if reading his mind. “There’s no way out for the Hesses this time. We find them, we get their benefactor, we take them out.” She tilted her head up, placing a soft kiss on his cheek. “Then we get our lives back.”

After all this time, he still couldn’t understand how Kono managed to hold on to optimism like she did. While he’d become more cynical and jaded through the years, the work they’d had to do harder and dirtier by the day, she remained a beacon of light for them. He knew that it was hard for her some days, watched her struggle in private, only to bounce back with a smile on her face. It was one of the many reasons why he’d fallen so hard for her. 

“This is it,” he echoed in agreement, trying the words on for size. He lowered his head to tap his nose against hers affectionately. “You think you can settling back into a normal life again, after all we’ve seen and done?” 

“If it means you’ll grow the hair out again, then absolutely,” Kono teased him in return, reaching up to run her fingers through it. After a second incident involving someone gripping it to deliver a good knock to his noggin, Danny had gone for a close cut along the sides, compromising with his husband and wife when they both expressed their dismay at the change. 

“I miss having something to grip,” Steve murmured on Kono’s other side, looking uncomfortable and tangled up in the seat, yet somehow still relaxed enough to convey the image of being fast asleep. He opened one eye and peered over at them. “I still don’t agree with the whole ‘normal’ thing anyway. Nothing is ‘normal’ about being married to you two.” Kono gave him a playful shove in the shoulder as Danny reached around to ruffle his hair.

“You love us. You really, really love us.” Danny took his turn to tease, bottom lip sticking out in a pout. 

“You’d better be careful, Williams. A bird is going to see that pout and land on that lip of yours.” 

“I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, _Wildcat_? You’re always a sucker for a free meal.” 

Scowling, Steve held up a finger. “Despite the occasional urge to indulge in a feline-appropriate diet item, I would not eat something still feathered and alive, _Berserker._ ” 

Danny drew in a breath to respond when Kono clapped a hand over his mouth. “And _Deadshot_ says no more to this conversation, at least not in public where the shedding of clothing is deemed inappropriate when it involves nudity.” 

“That’s for later,” Steve added, grinning evilly.

“In celebration. Nudity, champagne, whipped cream,” Danny stated, sighing after. “So close that I can taste the whipped cream.” He stared out the window for a moment, Honolulu’s lights growing brighter in the distance. It wouldn’t be long before he was back on Hawaiian soil with his spouses, one step closer to reuniting with his daughter. 

“Hey.” Kono’s hand slipped into his, followed by Steve, the three of them clasping hands. “We’ve been through hell and back. We’ve had days when we thought the worst of ourselves would win, where everything seemed to overwhelm us. We’ve seen more battles, more death, more violence and chaos than we ever really wanted to. But we’re not only here, we not only survived, but we found the best in it. We found each other. While I wouldn’t want to go through any of that again, I think I might begrudgingly go through it for you guys. Maybe.” At the edge of the serious moment, the mischievous glint appeared in her eyes, followed by a small grin that she failed to keep under wraps. 

Both men leaned in to kiss her cheek. “It’s safe to say I feel the same way about it,” Steve said, then tilted his head. “Maybe not about Danny, but…” He leaned out of the way as Danny reached over to smack him. 

“I definitely feel that way about you, Kono, but definitely not about Steve now.” 

“Boys.” 

“I love you too, buddy.”

“Boys!” 

“Uh huh. I don’t believe you.”

“ _Boys!_ ” 

“I officially have a better sense of humor than you…” 

As the plane came down on the tarmac, jolting as the tires bounced on impact, Kono pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. “Right now, I really could go for killing something.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [evil's in my pocket and your will is in my hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12355494) by [teaspoon82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoon82/pseuds/teaspoon82)




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